A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Civil Engineering

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2002

In the past, dam constructions were carried out in the developed countries but nowadays the constructions of dam projects are concentrated in the developing countries· because of the requirements of the increased population and the diversity in the need of the people. Particularly, many of the dams are being constructed in the Asian region such as China, India, Lao, Thailand and so on. These dam projects give many benefits to the whole nation as well as the affected people but at the same time bring many impacts on the environment and the affected people. Most of the time the affects are spread to vast areas. Due to the affected areas become large, dams projects generate talk among the people in the world and bring many different parties into the project. The involvement of many parties causes conflicts among the parties who are always having different interests in the project. Conflicts in dam construction projects are common whether it is being constructed in the developed country or developing country. Conflicts over dam construction projects are more than the conflicts over water projects. The conflicts in the dam projects are over human development and life itself. These conflicts should be prevented in the first time in order to make everybody happy about the project and bring benefits as fast as it could be. This thesis study analyzed the different types of impacts that occurred in the past projects and the measures implemented in those projects to mitigate the impacts. Then an advisory knowledge based expert system is developed using the past project information to prevent the conflicts in dam projects. The expert system gives advices to prevent different type of impacts, which could occur in dam projects. The advices given by the expert system are those, which are now in use in different parts of the world in dam projects or used as alternatives for dam projects. Furthermore, the system includes some of the past projects and the impacts already occurred in those projects and the mitigation measures taken by the project owner. Lastly, the thesis concludes with the findings from the past projects and some recommendations to eliminate, reduce the bad impacts in future projects and some suggestions for further study in dam and other construction projects.